


Tree to Grow

by Serenhawk



Series: Cockles in the Wild [7]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Adventures in gardening, Cockles, Cockles Cooperative, Domestic Fluff, M/M, POV Jensen, Polyamory, Recreational Drug Use, dorky husbands, long term relationships are hard, not 'that' tree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-13 21:50:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12993243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenhawk/pseuds/Serenhawk
Summary: Misha and Jensen talk about the inevitability of living behind a shroud, and Misha proposes a humble, creative conduit for their feelings.





	Tree to Grow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hallemcready](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hallemcready/gifts).



> This is for Hallemcready, in honor of our shared headcanons. It was a delight and privilege to share HonCon with you ❤
> 
> Title and inspiration from _Tree to Grow_ by The Lone Bellow.  
> [Watch on YouTube](https://youtu.be/f9VzHGRDdUY)
> 
> Written for the Cockles Cooperative 'Out' Honcon challenge. Thanks Brea for the quick beta.
> 
> This is a work of fiction. No disrespect is intended to those whose names are used.

 

 

 

 _The tree I’ll grow to let you know_  
_My love is older than my soul_

 

 

Leaning the shovel against his ribs, Jensen stretched his arms behind him until one shoulder made a satisfying pop.

“Whose idea was this?” he griped, his face pulling into a grimace he let tell the story of how the only lifting he wanted to be doing was the neck of a chilled bottle to his mouth.

A bead of of sweat gathered momentum and ran down above his eye. He first caught it on the back of his wrist, then when that failed with the hem of his tee.

Misha paused, placing his chin on the backs of his hands as they balanced on the handle tip. “Which idea?” he mused, squinting into the sun. “The digging a hole by hand? In the middle of the day in Texas? Or planting this magnificent botanical specimen?”

Jensen knew there was a trap hidden in the questions, but was momentarily distracted by Misha letting the shovel fall with a thunk to the ground so he could haul his shirt over his head. He’d seen Misha naked a thousand times, but there were occasions it still took him by surprise how stupidly touchable he was, all subtle, classical curves and burnished skin despite fall being in its death throes. Lucky for him, he had standing permission rake his eyes (and more) over Misha any time he liked. Although to be fair, it wasn’t always as often as he liked, due to various constraints. Which, funnily enough, is precisely how he’d ended up here, in the brewery yard, digging a giant-ass hole with Misha on an unseasonably humid afternoon with a stomach full of Thanksgiving leftovers.

“What’s so amusing?”

The question took Jensen by surprise, belatedly aware he was chuckling under his breath at his own driftings on how so much of his existence circled back to the man looking at him with suspicion. “Oh, nothin,” he replied, deliberately unhelpful. “And this tree was _your_ idea, therefore all subsequent ideas belong to it.”

“Are you complaining about the symbolic tree?” Misha’s eyes narrowed further as he brought his hands to his hips, but any resentment in his tone was exaggeration.

“I’m symbolically complaining,” he said, directing an impudent grin at Misha before squaring this hands on the shaft to drive the shovel blade down into the crumbling earth. “We could be over there on the porch having a beer right now.”

Misha let his tee float to the ground and lifted his tool. “Just think of this as allegorical toil for all the emotional labor we’ve been through over the past decade to get here,” he reasoned cheerfully. Jensen pulled a face, unsure if Misha was being facetious or deadly serious. “Plus, if we come back without this planted we’re just going to be laughed at."

“Since when have you worried about the womenfolk laughing at us?”

“‘Womenfolk’?” Misha parroted, mouth twitching at one bemused corner. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t, but they know this is….important, even if they aren’t entirely cognizant why, “ he added, shaping the opposite edge of the hole before lifting a balanced mound of dirt with a faint grunt.

Jensen stopped and leaned on his handle while he watched Misha tip it neatly onto the growing pile. “Did you not discuss it with Vic?” he asked. He thought they talked about _everything_.

Misha turned back and tipped his head. “We’ve talked about the problem—often—you know that. She’s listened to me as I’ve turned myself inside out with indecision and anxiety over it. For years. There were times when I—” He broke off and sighed, peevishly dropping the point of his blade into the ground at his feet as he relived some associated emotion. Jensen was familiar with most of them too, but let Misha follow his own thoughts. “But not this. Not in so many words,” he continued, “why— how much does Dee know?”

“She knows somethin's up because we don't normally take off to garden together," he answered dryly. "But I didn’t go into detail. Not sure I could explain it, or want to." He tried to shrug off any loose feelings looking to seed themselves. This was a good thing. A small thing, but something with meaning, something they could control.

Control: for the most part, that’s what it came down to, and something he excelled in.

While a tug of war between feeling grievously disingenuous to their relationship and owning it in small ways that were nobody’s business but their own, still clashed years on, they were each well beyond the heart-stopping urge throw open closet doors, just to see what would happen. In fact it’d been several years since either they or even their families had considered their situation a secret. Sure it was a managed and heavily regulated secret outside of their homes and inner circles, but it was an open one.

That didn’t mean there weren’t times when frustration at the not insignificant limitations they still placed on themselves didn’t chafe at their near-decade of interpersonal history. It was as much in the little moments as the big ones that he felt it; when Misha was obviously ill or emotionally depleted, and the arm Jensen could extend him wasn’t as long or comforting as he would have liked. Or Misha said something whereupon Jensen was reduced to grinning like a loon, quite sure the fact he was smitten was written all over his face but not giving a single fuck. Or more selfishly when Misha is being celebrated, and a sliver of insignificance slides into his heart alongside any swell of pride.

They were quicksilver emotions, hard to catch and contain and more intangible than other more reflexive ones. Like the occasional flare of jealousy he no longer admitted to, or when Misha was diminished in some way and Jensen wanted to kick their drawbridge loose and wait with sword drawn for anyone who dared challenge either of them.

Perhaps fittingly, Jensen reflected as Misha resumed toiling at the gape in the ground, it hadn’t been any one of these moments which led directly to this. It had been when they were happy; relaxed and lazing on Jensen’s balcony after a day’s shooting, watching the sun go down over Vancouver—and the summer. They were a little high, which probably accounted for both Misha’s idea, and Jensen going along with it.

 

 

“What’re you doing?” Misha had asked, skeptically eyeing Jensen’s wandering bare toes scribbling a non-too-subtle love poem along his inseam and up over his fly.

He’d crunched to sit, bringing them face to face on the wicker couch with only their tangle of legs between them. “Just lettin’ you know I’m down,” he’d replied baldly, reaching to pluck the remains of the joint from Misha’s fingers.

Misha had begun to chuckle, a low huff of laughter which bubbled into a languid full body shake, though at what Jensen hadn’t known or even cared. Hearing Misha laugh always made him feel sated.

“Later, tiger,” Misha said, stretching out his neck and closing his eyes as his amusement settled into a doped up smile.

Jensen took a long drag. “Why not now?” he’d suggested tightly on his held breath, finally letting it out in a rush. “Don’t want you to fall asleep on me, old man.”

Misha had opened one eye to beadily focus on him.. “Now? Here?”

“Why not?” he’s replied as he lay back down with a slow sultry shift to his hips, returning to his inattentive fondling.

“I’m sure your neighbors would love that show. As would the internet when the shaky, grainy, yet irrefutable video evidence surfaced, taken from one of these highrises.” Misha had waved a hand to blindly take in the buildings across the street while making it subtextually clear he'd rather be napping. Jensen had wished he could say they’d officially reached old married couple status but in truth they’d been comfortably OMC-adjacent for years already—in their quieter moments anyway.

“Chickenshit” Jensen had goaded, walking his smaller toes under the round bulge in Misha's pants.

Misha had sighed, painstakingly. “Satisfying your extemporaneous exhibition kink is not how I want us to come out.”

“How do you want us to come out,” Jensen had asked, dangling his arm to stub the spliff on the concrete floor. The question was purely hypothetical and they both knew it, but sometimes they liked to torture themselves with a game of ‘what if’.

“Jared offered to shave ‘I-heart-Misha’ in the back of your head next time you passed out,” Misha had replied, without missing a beat.

He’d made a dismissive noise before a gust of wistful petulance ruffled his feathers. “I mean it. No skywriting, no matching tattoos...no full page ad in Variety or gishwhatthefuckever tasks,” because those were all options on the table at some point, jokingly or not.

Misha’s had brow scrunched in lightly in the middle, indicating he was actually thinking. “Something subtle. Without fanfare.”

“Subtle is your middle name,” Jensen said, with extensive sarcasm, which naturally Misha ignored.

“Everywhere I go,” Misha had continued, with the ardent tone of a man in the grip of a terrible idea. "I’m going to carve our initials encased in a heart into a tree. Trees! Until there are thousands of them across the continental US. Sooner or later someone will catch on. Or catch me in the act.”

Jensen had considered the thought for a few moments, then rolled his eyes and lumbered to sit. He reached for the small tin on the table.

“What’re you doing?” Misha had asked.

“Rolling another joint. Coz obviously I’m not as fucked up as you - that’s the corniest shit I’ve ever heard,” he accused, unfairly, because the truth was it was actually kind of cute. Dumb as shit, but cute. “What if no one ever notices or realizes?” he’d added, undertaking a quick mental calculation of the odds.

Misha had answered serenely. “Then it will just be between us and the universe.”

“And the defaced trees. I thought you liked trees!”

“I do. They're great listeners and their energy is very soothing." There was a lull, before an intrepid: "We should get a tree.”

“What?” Jensen had barked as he worked, not following Misha’s brain as it evaded all of his antagonism and went off on the kind of adventure only Misha’s brain can have. He crammed the finished flat end of the joint into the corner of his mouth and struck the lighter.

“A tree that’s just ours. A totem of our enduring but obscured-for-shitty-yet-necessary-reasons relationship. One that will stand tall and outlive us, or at least past when we inevitably fuck each other over or drift apart—”

“You goddam hippie,” Jensen had interrupted, swivelling onto the couch and straddling Misha’s legs, batting his knees together as he walked on his own to settle across his broad thighs. The casual inference that they had an expiry date had him stuffing the joint between Misha’s lips, with prejudice. Which—to be fair—wasn’t difficult; a little like giving a baby a bottle. “Okay,” he’d added after watching Misha puff then hold.

“Okay?”

“Yes, okay, let’s do that,” he’d agreed, partially to bring the conversation to an end so they could get on with the ‘hey my dick and your dick are friends’ portion of the evening, and partially because….damn, he couldn’t remember coz damn this was some good shit.

What he hadn’t anticipated at the time, was Misha facetiming him out of the blue several weeks later with a ‘Hi, have you thought about what kind of tree?” followed with a lecture on the cross-cultural symbolism of oak trees from —including but not limited to— celtic druidry to indigenous north americans, whereupon he agreed that yes, the associated qualities of endurance and strength of character yada yada made it the perfect choice and suuure Misha should go away and research varieties endemic to central Texas because _yep, absolutely, where better place to plant the fucker than the Family Business uh-huh okay, you do that babe._

Misha had come back later via lengthy texts listing a number of choices, and together they settled on a Burr Oak for such considered reasons as it was a fast grower, had a coarse exterior and unusually large nuts. Jensen was then tasked with finding the ideal specimen before Misha, Vicki and the kids, having coordinated a scarce extra few days off during the the same week, dropped in on their way home from spending Thanksgiving weekend with family back east.

Jensen had dutifully done the deed, even patting himself on the back for finding the biggest strapping sapling in the county and getting it at wholesale _and_ delivered, because when he’d put his name down for the order it turned out the guy’s daughter was a fan and sure he could come out for a beer too and get her his autograph.

Which is how two of them were now, in a rare November heat wave, standing either side of a shallow grave sized round hole with the sixteen foot swaddled tree perched precariously on the forks of the warehouse lift, waiting to be maneuvered into place. And, as much as Jensen felt a little ridiculous about the entire venture, he couldn’t deny that it offset a little of the sacrificial aspects to he and Misha committing to flying under the radar for the sake of their privacy, and even more so, the peace and privacy it ensured their primary life partners and their children.

 

 

“Is it big enough?”

“What?” Jensen drew his thoughts back to the present and ordered them to assemble. “Oh, the hole?” he clarified, wielding his dimples.

“Adequate prep is the important part,” Misha deadpanned, leaning on his shovel.

Jensen squinted at the opening and then the oak’s root ball, and estimated they had it about right. He hoped so, because once they let it down they were not getting it out again.

“Think so,” he assured, but Misha took his shovel and used it as a measuring stick to gauge the depth of their excavation against the bound roots, an action Jensen kicked himself he didn’t think of first. Misha wasn’t _completely_ devoid of practical nous.

“You want to do the honors?” Misha asked, gesturing at the forklift. “Oh wait, knife?”

“Pardon?”

“In your pocket, for the cover.”

“Oh,” he said, retrieving the small leatherman tool he often carried round with him when he was at home - a habit he’d inherited from his grandfather, and one which his wife fondly mocked him for when it was most often used for such gallant tasks as opening gifts and packaged toys. Misha took it and scored lines in the thick woven plastic wrapping the roots until he was able to pull most of it away, while Jensen assumed the driver’s seat and debated how best to try and deposit the tree in or as near the hole as possible with inadequate machinery and limited forethought for safety.

Following a short internal debate he inched towards the hole and let the forks rest on the dusty grass at the edge so they could unbrace the specimen and drop it in place, tipping and rolling it until it was upright, square in the center. Even between the two of them it was a heaving effort, but they managed to accomplish it without noticeable damage to the tree or each other. Then all was left was to run hose to the base while they began to replace the earth back where it belonged, pack it down underfoot, then spread the large sack of mulch around the base that the gardener in this enterprise (spoiler alert: not him) had the foresight to request.

Once they were finished they stood back to admire the job well done and take stock of the moment. Or at least Misha did - Jensen used the smear of soil on Misha’s forearm as an excuse to start a one-sided water fight. Misha, after the initial indignation wore off at being thoroughly doused at close range, had attempted to tackle him, and it was then Jensen realized he’d failed to account for an offensive when there was only so far and fast you could dodge with the end of a long, heavy hose unless you surrendered your weapon to the enemy and ran.

Misha was not a dirty wrestler but he was both agile and strong, so it didn’t take long before they were both dripping, which was wasn’t unpleasant given the conditions under which they’d exerted themselves.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not treating this occasion with the gravitas it deserves,” Misha concluded as they packed up the remnants of the job.

Jensen waited until Misha had lain the shovels across the forks and turned around before he stepped up into his space, diving his fingers down into Misha’s front pocket. “Just looking for my favorite implement,” he explained to Misha’s inquisitorial eyebrow as he fished out his pocket knife he’d seen him absently stash there during the planting. Then he strode to the tree, flipped out the smallest blade and began carving into the bark above his head, small flakes of wood catching in the hairs on his forearm as they fell.

“You usually do come first,” Misha murmured, having fallen in beside him to scrutinize the ‘J+M’ Jensen was carefully tattooing onto their tree; if this was going to expand and remain for two hundred years he wanted it to look half decent.

When he’d judged it adequate, Misha held out his hand with an “if you please” and took the tool from him to complete the task, framing the initials with one of his lopsided hearts. “What?” he demanded when he’d finished, turning with a smile to see why Jensen was bubbling with curt giggles.

“This is ridiculous,” Jensen commented, slightly breathless.

“You’re right, it is,” Misha agreed with a forlorn shrug.

Jensen shuffled forward to glide a palm along Misha’s still bare left shoulder to cup his ear, holding him still while he planted a kiss to his mouth, more than aware of the fact they were in full view of any diligent employees who might be laboring in the building fifty yards away.

“I get it,” he rasped against Misha’s cheek.

“You do?”

“I do.” He kissed him again, a light brush signaling his reluctance to pull away before he did so to say what he suddenly felt he needed to. “This is a home I’ve made, with the family I chose, and you’re a part of that. You are,” he asserted, seeing the deprecating protest in Misha’s eyes. He meant it. Misha’s —Vicki’s— presence were in the foundations of the place even if it wasn’t obvious to anyone other than him, and maybe Dani. “We’re safe here,” he added earnestly, tipping his head to the oak as its leaves, still holding onto their green despite few left on the other trees dotting the yard, rustled tenderly in the breeze, “and our symbolic fucking tree can thrive while it overlooks everything.”

He meant it, and more than that he felt it’s eventual presence: shading wide among its peers while deer frolicked underneath, kids or grandkids playing in its limbs, shared drinks and laughter leaning against the trunk, and even future lovers making it their own. He could even see himself wandering out here for some solitude with it when he missed Misha and _jesus_ he should have known his tree-hugger cooties were contagious.

Misha, he was pleased to note, was struggling to find words in response.  
“‘kay,” he finally said.

“Okay,” Jensen echoed, ruffling Misha’s damp hair. “I think we earned that beer, dont’cha think?”

“Sure,” Misha answered, adding with convincing gravity “just promise me something first?”

“Of course.”

Misha’s azure blue eyes stared into his like they were looking for an eternal truth, Jensen’s breath giving a pavlovian hitch as he watched plush lips part. “Come back and tie a stake each side of this so it doesn’t snap in the wind,” his boyfriend finally whispered.

“Oh my god,” Jensen blurted, adding gruffy “you’re walking back,” as he sauntered to the forklift, before remembering that whomever was on foot had control of the jet-spray end of the hose.

 

 


End file.
